Upholding People's Rights under the Constitution

Thursday, May 04, 2006

After an appeal for supporting our petitions of ‘Workers’ Constitutional Rights’ was posted on ACTU’s ‘rights watch blog’ http://www.rightsatwork.com.au/rightswatch/ on 28 April 2006, a lawyer acted for (paid by) the Commonwealth Attorney-General wrote a letter to me and informed:

“The Commonwealth Attorney-General will not be intervening in thisapplication for special leave to appeal to the High Court.

If special leave to appeal is granted, the Attorney-General mightdecide to intervene in the appeal. This would be considered upon the receipt of the appropriate notice under s 78B of the Judiciary Act 1903.”

The lawyer signed the letter in his own capacity as an ordinary lawyer not on the Attorney-General’s behalf. I have written to the Attorney-General many times. Every time he wrote back in person at the end of the fourth week after receiving my letter. Apparently this time he did not want to take the responsibility for the decision in relation to our Notices of a Constitutional Matter (the Notice), which was certified by the High Court and directly address to him under s 78B of the Judiciary Act 1903. It is unlikely that he thought my previous letters were more important than the Notices certified by the High Court. It is more likely that the Attorney-General is playing the current government’s notorious trick that junior staff will take the blames when things develop opposite to the government’s wishes. Apparently if the lawyer did not take the risk he would have been punished for it.

Under s 35A of the Judiciary Act 1903, the criteria for granting a special leave application is not whether the judgments made by the Court below are absolutely wrong, it’s whether “that is of public importance”. The lawyer challenges us that we can not convince the judges of the High Court that the errors made by the Federal Courts “is of public importance” because no well-paid Queen Counsel represents us.

On the cover page of the website of Australian Government Solicitor, http://www.ags.gov.au, an important current issue is against fraud. It does not suggest that the people should complain about fraud “to a Court or Tribunal”. However the lawyer held, to the effect that it was not of public importance that Hilda had been punished because she had been against her superior’s fraud.Our petitions show that the constitutional matters arising from the Notices are of public importance, and press the Attorney-General to do his ultimate duty, upholding people’s rights under the Constitution.

The lawyer conceded to the effect that the judgments, from which we appeal, were wrong; however, he suggested that our Notices were not appropriate. In my opinion, he hinted that we questioned the judges’ attitudes in the Notices. Well-paid Queen Counsels would not question their mates’ (the judges’) attitudes.The ultimate goal of our petitions is to expose that the judges’ wrong attitudes toward to the grassroots are fundamental problems in the legal system. That is why the grassroots people have known that the legal system is for the rich and not the poor.United and Pressing the Attorney-General to Do His Ultimate Duty, Upholding People’s Rights under the Constitution